1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk player, and more particularly to a multiple-disk player in which a plurality of digital audio disks (hereinafter simply referred to as a disk) are held and automatically changed for playing back a plurality of pieces of music in sequence.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A multiple disk player has recently been developed on which, for example, at least one magazine is mounted. The magazine holds a plurality of disks each carrying thereon a plurality of pieces of music. The multiple-disk player performs its playback operation in a selected manner such as: a sequential manner in which a plurality of the disks are sequentially played back in the order of the disk positions and of the music numbers carried thereon (hereinafter referred to as sequential playback); a programmed manner in which a plurality of the disks are played back in a predetermined sequence determined without respect to the disk positions and the music numbers (hereinafter referred to as programmed playback); and a random manner in which those music pieces on the disks are randomly played while designating a music number determined on the basis of a random number obtained from a suitable random-number source such as a table of random numbers or the like (hereinafter referred to as randomly-selected playback).
In case that music pieces recorded on the disk are copied into a cassette tape through the so-called dubbing operation, the cassette tape often ends off before the last one of the music pieces is entirely recorded on the cassette tape. In this case, such a music piece recorded on the cassette tape stops suddenly when it is played back on the tape recorder, which gives the user an unpleasant feeling. In order to avoid such an unpleasant situation, the disk player may be provided with a predetermined playback period of time depending on the length of a cassette tape, and upon the lapse of such predetermined playback period of time, the disk player automatically decreases an audio signal level reproduced from the disk being played back, which is the so-called "fade-out operation".
Since, in the case of a single-disk player, the TOC (Table of Contents) information can be used for determining a playback period of time by which the disk player can start the fade-out operation at a suitable timing (hereinafter referred to simply as the fade-out timing), upon the completion of the playback operations for the desired number for music pieces. Since, on the other hand, the TOC information is inherent to each disk, the total playback period cannot be previously determined without reading out the TOC information of all disks mounted on the disk player, in case of the multiple-disk player. Furthermore, disk-changing periods of time required to change the disks being played back in the multiple-disk player cannot be determined prior to actual playback operations. Therefore it is impossible for the multi-disk player to carry out the fade-out operation in the same manner as that of the single-disk player.
A playback period of time may be manually measured by means of a timer. When the thus measured playback period of time reaches a predetermined amount of time corresponding to a capacity of a tape, the fade-out operation can be carried out in the player. Such method takes a relatively long time since the actual playback operation is to be once performed and makes it difficult for the user to quickly confirm whether or not the fading-out function of the disk player may actually appear at the dubbing operation.